


Strays

by paox



Category: One Piece
Genre: ASL Brothers, ASL Trio, AU, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Revolution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-22 04:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11959269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paox/pseuds/paox
Summary: Ace, Sabo and Luffy grow up on the streets together until tragic circumstances force them to separate. Ace is pulled into the heart of the rebellion, but he never forgets his brothers. And when the time comes, he sets out to reunite with them - because the world itself can't keep the trio apart.Faced with rough seas and a turbulent world, will a revolutionary, a pirate and an undercover marine be able to reunite as brothers?





	1. Tell Me Your Lies

**Chapter 1 – Tell Me Your Lies**

* * *

_My name is Portgas D. Ace._

_My name is Portgas D. Ace, and I'm eighteen years old. I'm a revolutionary. I have - or, **had** , two brothers._

_And I'm broken._

_(I don't mean that in a poetic sense, either. The doctors call it 'mental instability', phrase it as a myriad of disorders and traumas but I know better. Something's lost. I can't find it, and I don't know where to start looking.)_

_And I'm only writing in this thrice-damned book because old man Herr says it might help. I know it probably won't – the only thing I can imagine helping now is being with the Whitebeards again, or seeing my little brother, or going back in time and making it so that I never even met Outlook D. Sabo. After all, he's the one that caused this emptiness. (God, I miss him.)_

_Well, I guess I should start from the beginning. I'll burn this book the second I can use my fire again - not that that's very likely now - but writing out what happened might help to, I don't know, soften the ache? Don't ask me; I'm no goddamned psychologist, cousin._

_I digress._

_So, I'll start at the very beginning. Eighteen years ago, I was born in the harsh, chaos-reigned East._

* * *

Darkened streets, laced with wet flagstone that glints in the rain, are slashed by lightening. Somewhere, a clock is striking three. The sun has yet to lighten the horizon, and the storm rages on. Lining the streets, shops are boarded up tightly and the windows of houses are dark. This is the twilight hour – and no soul in the city is awake to watch the grimy streams of water that rush through the gutters as the streets slowly begin to flood.

Quickly, imperceptibly, the wind changes.

A harsh gust of wind from the north sends raindrops like bullets powering into windows. Once-colourful posters that line the street corners are now mottled and dog-eared, ink dripping down concrete to meet the earth. Apart from the war drums of thunder, the symphony of the pouring rain, the city is silent.

The people of this city, though they don't know it, would do well to be wary of this new north wind.

This north storm, cold and harsh and from lands far away, is wild and untamed. Along with it comes a shadow, dipping through alleyways, sodden with rain as its feet slap through marbled puddles of water and oil. In its ears ring a promise, and its heart is aflame. This shadow, this silent shape in the weeping night, knows that change is coming.

It's coming now.

The shadow stumbles through overturned carts and market stalls, and around them the rain is silver in the light of the waxing moon. They walk unevenly and their breaths come in huffs, tight with pain. They clutch a bundle to their chest, and they shiver as the cold seeps through their distinctive leather-collared jacket. Still, they carry on moving. The bitter wind is close on their heels.

The shadow reaches a building near the outskirts of Edge Town and raps hard on the door; once, twice, before the door opens onto darkness and a hand reaches from within to pull them in. The door snaps closed, and there is silence once more, broken only by the rain and the wild, contented growl of the north wind. The residents will wake tomorrow to a watery sun, rebuild their homes after a harsh storm - and they'll carry on, unknowing of just what the wind has brought them.

 _Change is coming_ , the wind howls, slipping back to lands far away.  _And it's coming now_.

* * *

_My mother, I'm told, was a kind woman. She died the day after she gave birth to me, only staying alive long enough to drop me with some bandits that her father, my granddad (who I've never met), was on good terms with. So I spent my first two or three years with the bandits. I never learnt how to read and write – Sabo was the one who taught me that, years and years later – and my speech was really behind, because they were goddamn_ _bandits_ _, not babysitters._

_I guess I'm sorta lucky, in that way, that I met Shanks. He was from the north and was only staying in the east for a few months to recuperate after a 'rough few months at home', as well as to visit some chick somewhere in the town that I didn't meet until he was gone. Shanks came to visit a few times afterwards and honestly, he was probably the closest thing I ever had to a father. He taught me how to speak and act like I wasn't a rabid animal, at least. He took me under his wing._

* * *

Ace's earliest memory is from when he was around three or four, if he was to guess. A man with a familiar smell and scarlet hair that Ace clutches with small, chubby fingers picks him up and situates him on his hip, grinning fondly as Ace babbles happily in the few words that he knows. The sea air fills his young nose, sharp and sweet, and the wind gusts lazily through the crowds.

Today's the day of some kind of special celebration in the city. The people of the city are gathered around, thronging and heaving forward, flooding the streets with loud cheering and flag-waving. Something about it makes Ace feel sort of… off. If a toddler can feel that way at all. Mothers and fathers hold their children back, and everybody's looking down to the floor, slightly hunched, shadows in their eyes.

The parade is different, too. Ace has seen a few parades in his short life- the annual Autumn March and the winter display, to name a few. But there are no bright colours and music now. Five, maybe ten men strain at ropes at the front of the single parade float – if it can even be called that. Weighed down by a gold chair and the stick-thin, curled-lipped man on top of it, the float moves at a snail's pace through the city. As it passes, the people bow their heads. A tremble, a whimper rushes through the crowds.

( _this is how the world ends; not with a bang, but with a whimper_ )

One of the men pulling the float steps forward on one trembling leg, and then hits the floor with a crack that resounds through the air. Shanks flinches. When Ace turns to him, young eyes wide, he sees that he's trembling – not out of fear, but out of rage. His usually bright eyes are shadowed, and he holds Ace tighter.

"Guilty."

When the thin man on the float speaks, some sort of device on his shoulder amplifies his voice and turns it into a distorted monstrosity, a grotesque imitation of speech. Ace hides his face in Shanks' shoulder, and the older man covers his eyes as the float rolls over the man's still body. Ace can't see it but he knows; the fallen man has just been crushed. He's dead, all because he fell while tugging along some stupid old man. Ace wants to yell out at how disgusting it all is, at how his young mind can't seem to wrap around the malformed body and the blood streaming into the gutter, but the second the float has passed them Shanks whisks him away.

Hours later, Ace perches on a crate on Shanks' boat, opposite Benn. Benn's nice enough. He sort of reminds Ace of a kind, low-voiced uncle, if Shanks is his father. The man on the float and all of the men who once pulled him; they're all gone. Shanks is nowhere to be found.

Benn sighs, looking beyond his years for a moment. "That man, who was being pulled by the slaves, is something called a  _Hyumangoddo_. They're not nice people. I doubt that that was the last time you'll ever see one, either. But listen to me, Ace. Whenever you see one – no matter what you're doing and who you're with – you run. Run as hard and as fast as you can. Those men don't care about you, or anyone, really. All they care about is that mark on the back of your neck."

"Mark?" Ace parrots. He reaches up to the back of his neck and taps the pale skin there, so often covered up.

"Yes." Benn looks grim. "That mark means that you're free – and more importantly, that you're powerful – and those are the two things that the Hyumangoddo think only they deserve to be. That mark means that you were born with an ability, one that will show itself in a few years, I'll bet. You'll be strong. One in a few thousand are born with those marks on their necks, and nobody has the same one."

It's all so confusing to Ace, with his young mind and the innocence that doesn't last much longer. "Shanks?" he asks. Shanks'll know what to do, surely.

Benn's face goes from grim to sorrowful. "The captain doesn't much like the goddos. They took somebody he cared about, a long time ago."

Ace doesn't understand very much. Is Shanks okay, or not? How can he make it better? He can't figure out, for the life of him, what's wrong.

Three months later, the small band of sailors set course for rough northern seas, and Benn warns him one last time;  _keep your mark hidden, never tell anybody your full name – and if you see any of the Hyumangoddo,_ _ **run**_. Ace replays the words over in his head as Shanks scoops him into a fatherly hug, ruffling his wayward hair, and then they're gone and they've left behind a fear in Ace that he's immensely unused to. As he grows, he becomes more wary, sticking to back alleys and dark, narrow streets as he navigates the city.

Benn's last warning rings in his head whenever he hears news of the world nobles, and from then on, he stays out of sight when the yearly parade rolls by, with its silence and coldness and fear.

* * *

_Remember that chick I mentioned? Well, a few months after Shanks and the other sailors set off again, I met her. Her name was Makino, and apparently she was from the South (yep, I know). She wasn't all that bad, though. I only knew her for a few days before she gave birth to Shanks' kid, and she died pretty soon afterwards. Growing up as I did, it wasn't the first time I'd seen death, but I was a damn four-year old alone in an alley, with a baby and a dead body. I knew that if I brought the kid back to the bandits they'd probably, I don't know, eat it or something._

* * *

Ace's hands shake as he grasps Makino's wrist, trying to offer some kind of comfort as tears run down her soft, smiling face. Her eyes are growing rapidly more distant with every passing seconds, and the hand that isn't cradling her new-born son is half-submerged in the puddle they sit in. The wind howls mournfully, tousling Ace's grimy hair. Against his will, he feels tears fill his own eyes.

"Thank you, Ace-kun…" Her sweet voice is shaking, even as she tries her hardest to keep it steady. Her body is giving out. "Tell Shanks…Tell him-"

She gasps in pain, a whine tearing from her throat as the wind picks up around them, and Ace forces himself to try and smile. This is all so confusing, and the rain is too loud for him to be able to think properly. "It's okay," he tries, the words heavy on his tongue. That's what Shanks always used to say to him, after all. "It's okay, it's okay, it's-"

Her eyes roll back and, abruptly, they no longer see.

"-Okay." Ace stares for a long second before a sob rises unbridled in his throat, and he covers his mouth with his hand. The new-born baby cries loudly as if he knows that something awful has happened, skin paling as the rain patters down on his cold skin, and Ace tries to pull him towards him as he reins back another choked gasp. "It's okay, it's okay. Take care of you. It's okay. It's okay."

Eventually, tiny hands fisted in Ace's ratty tank top, the child stills and goes silent. For a heart stopping moment Ace thinks that he's dead, too.

That's not the case, though, and warm breath tickles his chest as he cradles the tiny, fragile bundle to him. Outside, the city screams with the rising monsoon and Ace starts to wonder just what on earth he can even start to do now.

* * *

_So I tried to raise Luffy on my own. There were some street artists on the other side of the city who took us in and, without them, we probably would've frozen to death within a few days. They were a bit rough around the edges ('a bit' is a gross understatement) but they helped me with the baby for a few years, until I was seven or so and I was old enough to scavenge my own food for me and the kid._

_Luffy didn't actually have a name until he was two or three, and I took it upon myself to give him a half-decent one. Just calling him 'little cousin' probably wouldn't work out in the long run. I mean, one of the bandits used to call him 'fluffy' because of his hair, and I guess six-year old me just rolled with it._

* * *

The kid's third birthday comes without much fuss. Ace knows that it's today because the tiny, black-haired child, all wide eyes and thin limbs, was born on children's day. He could never forget this day.

Ace wakes him with a gentle prod to the side as the morning sun starts to filter through the rotten boards of the walls and ceiling. This old house is close to collapse, and he and his unofficial little brother will have to move on soon, but for now this is shelter enough. The street artists are already out, setting up their meagre wares in the light of the morning sun, and Ace can hear them talking merrily. Across the city, the yearly children's day festival is already starting to stir.

The kid wakes without complaint, bright smile already in place, and Ace is already in a better mood just from looking at it. Maybe they can take a day off today, head over to the festival, and he can nick the boy something worthwhile for his birthday. Yeah, they can do that.

The pair slip out into the sunlight and across the street a few minutes later, waving to the artists that they call family on the street corner as their feet scuff the dry, dusty rubbish that lines the gutters. If it was later in the year, this island would be awash with monsoons and flooding, but right now they'll just have to deal with sweltering, stinging heat. As a result of growing up here in this intense seasonal heat, Ace's skin is washed in a subtle tan, and Luffy is very brown. With similar shocks of messy, black hair and small, skinny bodies, they look just like brothers.

The streets ring with jovial voices and music threads through the air. The black-haired child, clinging to Ace's side, sniffs eagerly as the sweet smell of carnival food drifts on the breeze, mixing with the warm scent of fresh bread from a nearby bakery. He tries to toddle away towards the appetising smells but Ace pulls him back at the last minute, keeping the tiny boy tucked closely against him.

This town seems like heaven, but the people watch the world with shadowed eyes and they speak to nobody as they go about their work in forced silence. Ace hates this place, even though he's so young. Deep down, there's something jarringly  _wrong_  here. Beneath the bright colours of festivities and feasts, people are scared; and Ace knows all too well that being scared turns people rotten. He might be young, but if he was stupid he would be dead.

Feeling abruptly skittish, Ace situates his younger companion in an alleyway with strict instructions not to move until he gets back. The child in question starts to play contentedly with a malformed, rusted tin on the ground, and Ace turns away with a small smile; he reckons that he'll be occupied for at least a few minutes while the older searches for something for his birthday.

A few minutes later, when Ace returns with a lightly steaming bun clutched in warming hands, the kid is gone.

Ace lets the warm treat slip from his small fingers, hitting the ground and rolling through the fine sand. A second later he's running further into the alley, the word 'kid!' slipping from frenzied lips over and over as he almost trips over the abandoned tin can. He catches himself and continues on, unsteady on young legs.  _Damnitt_. He should never have left him.

"Ace!" A young voice rings out distantly, muffled and distorted as he stumbles over the word, and Ace runs harder into the depths of the alley, weaving through the dark. "Help m-"

His voice silences suddenly, and panic thrums under Ace's skin like a war drum. Kicking up dust that hovers on the air behind him, the child follows the voice until he stumbles around a corner and into the sunlight.

"Ace!"

Ace almost sags in relief when his eyes land on his charge, running over to assess the damage. The kid is trapped under a fallen wagon and the sidestreet they're in is deserted, no adults around to help. Even if there was anybody here, though, Ace heavily doubts that they would do much.

Tears fill his kid's eyes, and Ace scans him for any injury. The heavy wheelbarrow that has apparently landed on him is digging into his small back, tearing his ratty old shirt, and Ace can see blood pooling there. He needs to get him out of there, and fast.

"Cousin?" Ace puts his hands on Luffy's shoulders, trying desperately to calm him down. "Kid, listen, you need to calm down. Kid!" The object of his concern is inconsolable, face screwed up in pain, crying out as his skin tears. Tears of frustration well up in Ace's own eyes, and he scrambles to his feet, moving around to try and lift the wheelbarrow with shaking hands. Pulling at it feverishly, it takes Ace a few seconds to pull the heavy weight up, and in the blink of an eye, Luffy's out.

Adrenaline that he's never felt soaring through him, Ace crashes down to the ground and pulls the closest thing he has to family close to him. The two children clutch at each other in the street, dust sticking to tear tracks on both of their faces, and they don't move for a while.

"Kid!" The younger, still snivelling, doesn't look up. "…Fluffy?" Ace tries, feeling slightly ridiculous. That's what a few of the street artists usually call him, and he tends to respond to it.

The name works, surprisingly, and watery brown eyes meet his own silver ones. "'Loofy?"

Ace gives a breathy laugh, clutching Luffy tighter as the panic finally wears off. "Loofy… Luffy.  _Luffy_." A grin spreads across his face, and Luffy picks up on it, beaming back widely as the tears start to slow. "Happy birthday, Luffy. I guess I gave you a name this year."

* * *

 _When I was nine, the artisans moved on. Of course, they wished us the best and left a little money, but things got a lot tougher. Luckily Luffy didn't have a Gift (I still kept the back of my neck covered all the time) but life was still tough. Things only got worse when_ _he_ _took over_.

* * *

The siege takes three days altogether. For a week or so before, terrified whispers swept through the city like wildfire. Parents locked their children indoors, the markets and squares were silent, and thunder brewed in the sky as the southward storm clouds rolled in. For those few days, Ace kept Luffy inside, trying to keep his surrogate brother warm even as the nights grew colder with each day. The city they knew so well seemed like it had been sucked into a vacuum, motionless and terrified. Rumours flew, and Ace was utterly unnerved by the terror in the people's voices as they uttered the unfamiliar name of 'Blackbeard'.

When the siege finally begins, it's with a whimper and not a bang. The people of the port district on the south side of the dusty eastern city watch with baited breath as one, two, three, five,  _ten_  ships roll in silently. Black water licks at the broad sides of the logboats, and as the last light of day fades from the sky, their leader steps onto the docks. Ace presses Luffy closer to him, hiding his face in his side.

The man is tall and imposing, overweight in every sense of the word and missing more teeth than Ace cares to count. He wears a captain's jacket, and his fingers are stained yellow from what he can assume is years of smoking and drinking – that's how the regulars in the bars look, anyway. When he laughs, it sounds vaguely like a polyester-covered man taking a stroll through a forest- grating and, honestly, making Ace want to cringe. He can almost smell he damn breath from here.

From where Ace and Luffy stand a way off, they can see more figures immerge from the boats, many of them weighed down with various weapons as they grin menacingly. It feels almost surreal, watching these people step out into the dust of their homeland. A deep-seated twinge of fear tickles Ace's heart, and he swallows.

"Luffy?" He keeps his voice a low, soothing whisper, and Luffy looks up at him with terrified eyes. He knows that something is terribly wrong here. Around them, the crowds are silent. "I'm going to count to three, and then we're going to run, okay?"

This seems to put Luffy even more on-edge. "Ace, who are they? What do they want with us?" His voice is a childish whine to anybody else, but to Ace it's a terrified plea, and his heart breaks.

"Shh, Luffy, it's okay. We're okay. This is- this is okay." Ace swallows again, clasping his hand around Luffy's. "Don't be scared. They're just some visitors." He hesitates.

Ace has heard rumours about this 'Blackbeard' man; many of them. For one, he's an anarchist. Everybody knows about anarchists. They sort of remind Ace of the pirates in the plays they put on in the town square – they travel from island to island, taking over whatever and wherever they damn please. They're the stuff of nightmares, the bumps in the night that the adults are afraid of, too.

This anarchist, though, is stronger than most average thugs. They call themselves the 'Blackbeard Pirates', even though the era of pirating is long gone. Blackbeard and his crew apparently took over Cocoyashi and Syrup Village in only a few hours, killing the men and kidnapping and attacking the women and children, and amassed their forces on Loguetown, a nearby city, with a vengeance. Even the strength of that naval powerhouse wasn't enough to hold them off.

Now that they're here, Ace knows perfectly well what fate awaits this island. Awaits him and Luffy.

"We'll be okay as long as we run, okay?" Benn's warning flashes through Ace's mind, and he suddenly wishes to feel Shanks' hand ruffling his hair, or hear the warm laughter of the artisans as they work, or watch the men at the bar crack up laughing as he beats one of them at cards. He doesn't have a home, but he's wishing for one more than ever right now.

Ace realises with a jolt that he's  _scared_.

"On three, okay?" Luffy squeezes his hand harder and nods tearfully in response. On the docks, a thin man with some kind of long sniper rifle at his side fixes his smirk on the pair, and Ace shudders violently. They need to get out of here right now. "One…"

The hand on the rifle twitches.

"Two…!"

Ace has to time this perfectly. Just before three, as he feels Luffy tense beside him to run, he swipes his leg outwards and feels it catch a man standing to their side on the ankle. He's always been strong and this is no exception- the man yells out and hits the floor, dragging the woman clinging to his arm down with him. People stop and stare, and the commotion is enough for Ace to hiss, "Three!"

They dive into a sea of legs, feet slapping on the wet cobblestone, and the rifle goes off with a sharp crack. Another man falls, and a bullet grazes the ground beside Luffy, causing him to yell out in panic. As Ace feels the open air on the back of his neck he realises it with a jolt; he's not wearing his scarf. With the frantic scramble to get to the port district when the alarm went up, he forgot to cover up his mark. And now, with the scope on that rifle, surely it's been seen.

Ace runs harder, panting with exertion as he tugs Luffy along with him. Above, thunder cracks at the same time as another gunshot sounds. White-hot pain lances through Ace's left elbow, and he grits his teeth against the urge to scream out. They may have been island-stealing sons of bitches, but they had a damn good sniper.

"C'mon, cousin," he grits out as soothingly as he can as Luffy stumbles. He hasn't called Luffy that term of endearment for years. "Just a little further!"

Three more shots, loud enough to make Ace's ears ring, rip through the air. Luffy screams and starts to fall, and faster than he's ever moved, Ace tugs the younger sloppily onto his back and continues on. Wetness hits his shoulder as Luffy sobs helplessly, and something hot and sticky starts to soak Ace's side.

Right now, he doesn't care about some thrice-damned 'abilities' that come with the mark on his neck. All he cares about is that his little cousin, practically his brother, is bleeding, and it's all because he was born with some stupid tattoo.

* * *

_Luffy nearly died that day and we had to go into hiding for good. And, even though things had been fucked to hell before then, that was the point when everything got ten times worse._


	2. Brothers

_I've a friend who lies and steals and cheats.  
_ _Always taking more than he can eat.  
_ _He says "To get what I want, I would probably kill.  
_ _If I don't take it, somebody else will."_

_\- 'Follow My Feet'_

Eventually, Ace and Luffy manage to throw themselves out of the thronging crowds and into the darkness of the familiar waterlogged streets. The warm, sticky wetness on Ace's side grows with every second, and Luffy whimpers into his ear, slowly going limp. Ace struggles to move onward, body screaming, and the sound of voices grows behind them ominously. He speeds up, crashing through the empty market before he sprints forward to plunge into a maze of narrow, high-walled alleys.

Darkness surrounds them, and slowly, the voices begin to fade. One, two more shots ring out in the night, barely whispers over the ringing in Ace's ears. He doesn't stop running – everywhere he looks he can see them, the shadows in the puddles glinting like the silhouettes of guns being cocked, his every footstep echoed by a phantom one as he glances behind him feverishly, sure that they're still following him.

Luffy goes abruptly, horribly still.

"Damnitt!" Ace's voice comes out as a choked, panicked gasp that sounds like it couldn't have come from his own mouth. His foot catches the edge of a rise in the concrete and he goes sprawling, sharp pain shooting through the front of his forelegs and arms as he skids for several feet. One of his sandals goes flying off, but he leaves it in favour of righting Luffy on his back and trying to pull himself to his feet, shuddering.

"Catch the Gifted kid!" Ace jumps, barely managing to pull himself and Luffy into a nearby alcove and shove his hand over his mouth to muffle his breathing before three or four of the Anarchist lackeys crash past. Eyes wide, Ace presses down hard on his nose and mouth and hides Luffy behind him, too petrified to move. A few long moments pass, before the sound of yelling and pounding feet fade.

Ace sags back in utter relief. Thank god. Thank everything.

Luffy gives a breathy whine, screwing up his face, and the situation hits Ace again like a bullet. He hovers over the younger, scared of hurting him if he tries to move him, and resists the urge to hit himself when his mind refuses to move at the speed he wants it to.  _Think, Ace, think_.

It clicks. By his estimations (not that they're all that accurate; he didn't exactly pay attention as he ran for his life) they should be nearing the town centre by now, and he knows that there's a bakers that always leaves its back door open not far from here. If he can just get Luffy there surreptitiously, he can nick some food for him and, hopefully, medical supplies.

But he needs to do it fast.

"Luffy, I'm…" Ace grits his teeth. "I'm so sorry for this."

In half a second, Ace rips off his black arm brace, balls up the stiff material and shoves it between Luffy's teeth. Setting his knees, he heaves the kid onto his back, and feels Luffy tense horribly. A muffled scream escapes from his throat but the arm brace does as it's meant to – Luffy should hopefully be quiet enough to move without garnering too much attention, and at least he has something to bite down on.

It takes two or three minutes to get to the bakery, but to Ace, it feels like hours and hours of torture. With every step Luffy's whines of pain grow quieter, dissolving into small sobs. The wet warmth on Ace's side clings to his skin, caking and dripping down his shorts. It takes every inch of Ace's will just to keep from stopping, giving in to the urge to comfort the kid (after all, he's been protecting him for six dam years. And now he's torturing him).

When they finally manage to drag themselves to the predictably open bakery door, Ace is as fast as he can be as he grabs anything and everything that looks like it could be of use. The people could be back at any second – but, knowing the people of this place, Ace knows that they probably won't go quietly. At the very least, a scuffle will break out - at most, a full-throttle siege. Ace lays Luffy on a workbench, sprinting upstairs to find anything that might help and to his utter relief, he finds a draw full of standard medical supplies in the bathroom.

Hammering back down the stairs, he trips and flies down the last few steps, hitting the stone floor at the foot of the stairs with a loud 'crack'. Ace's head spins and pounds but he forces himself to stand a few seconds later and carries on, the world tilting dangerously. Did he hit his head or something? Before he realises it he's back in front of Luffy, and he shakes his head violently, trying to dispel the darkness clouding his vision. Blood glinting with the glare of a single nearby lamp drips to the floor.

Somehow (and even years later, he doesn't know how the hell he does it), Ace manages to get Luffy's bloodstained shirt off and examine the bullet wound. It's about half an inch wide, maybe a little larger, and it appears to have gone right through Luffy's side – good, he won't have to take it out (Ace doesn't think he would've been able to stomach that). Hopefully it didn't hit any major organs but if it has, there's nothing that Ace can do about it anyway. He's anything but a doctor.

He gets to work patching the kid up. Once the blood is wiped away and the bleeding miraculously starts to slow, he can pretend that the wound isn't so bad; he still ends up fighting the urge to gag sometimes he works, though. He dribbles some disinfectant onto a gauze pad and starts to dab it lightly on the weeping bullet wound, thanking every star in the sky that Luffy's too out of it to feel anything. He doesn't deserve anymore pain.

The sound of cannonfire ruptures the air, and Ace freezes.

Damn, they don't have much time. If the fight has already broken out (as it undoubtedly has) it'll only get worse, and soon it will permeate the centre of the town. Ace works faster, pressing more gauze to the wound before wrapping thick coils of bandage around Luffy's torso to hold it in place. Provided that he doesn't move Luffy around too much, the bleeding should stop – at least, that's what Ace hopes. It seems impossible to him that Luffy even has any more blood left in his tiny body.

Ace pulls the bandages tight and slips Luffy's damp shirt back over him, staining the pristine bandages pinkish red. Somebody yells nearby, near incoherent, before the sound of gunfire begins. It's only as Ace his about to heave Luffy into his arms that he notices his own arm bleeding lightly, red dripping from a deep cut on his elbow down to his wrist. His eyes are refusing to focus. Taking a deep breath, he grabs the last of the roll of bandage and wraps it around the wound a few times. Vaguely, he recalls a bullet grazing him as they first started to run.

With that sorted, the raven-haired preteen lifts Luffy again, trying to cradle him gently in hopes of sating the wound on his side. Blowing out the lamp, he shoves the back door open again with his elbow and creeps out into the night, skirting around a pile of trash on the ground. A fox skitters across the ground a few feet in front of him, yapping. Legs tight and burning, Ace barely manages to pull himself and Luffy into a shop he knows is abandoned across the street before they give out.

Collapsing to the ground just inside the doorway, he pulls Luffy close to him and holds the kid tight, reaching out with shaking hands to close the door behind them. After barely a few minutes, the sounds of distant shouting and the clashing of swords reaches the mouth of the square, and then the battle is raging right outside the damn door. Every instinct Ace has screams at him to pull himself and Luffy far, far away from the sounds of ensuing battle, but his body refuses to move.

He falls asleep (passes out) fitfully to the sound of his city falling outside his door.

* * *

Ace wakes with a jolt to the sound of distant rumbling, and a thick smell of stale, settling smoke. Luffy's body is mercifully warm over his own, deep breaths tickling the hollow of his ear as he snores contentedly. The world appears to have righted itself as he slept – now he can tell the difference between the ceiling and the floor, at least, and though his head aches, it no longer feels like he's being roughly shaken constantly by somebody he can't see.

Shoving off Luffy as gently as he can (which, granted, isn't very gently at all) Ace props himself up on his hands and looks around him. Sunlight is starting to drip through the cracks in the derelict walls, and the sky is somewhere between baby blue and peach. The air is crisp and cold, but not to the point where Ace is shivering, and they are alone.

"Luffy?" Ace knows that if he wants to go anywhere, Luffy has to be conscious for it. No way in hell is he leaving him here alone. Leaning over, he shakes a small, grubby shoulder slightly. "Oi, Luffy, come on. Luffy." He shakes him incessantly, sighing in defeat when all Luffy does is whine under his breath and roll over, facing away from Ace.

"Don't make me hit you, you little moron, get up." An irritated growl tickles Ace's tone.

Luffy groans a little louder, large brown eyes slipping open as he rolls back over to look up at Ace. Though it's small, Ace can see his wince as he twists and knows that the bullet wound will most likely ail him for at least a few more weeks.

"Ace?" Luffy's words are slurred, eyes lidded with sleep. "Where are we?" After a second, his eyes widen curiously and he tilts his head. "What happened to your face?"

"My face?" Ace asks absently, raising his hand to feel along his jaw, "What about it?"

"You're all purple 'n stuff," Luffy says eloquently, before giggling. "Like an eggplant."

Now that Ace thinks about it, he can feel some bruising lining his cheekbone. It must've been from when he fell down those stairs. Looking himself up and down, he can see the rawness and scrapes along the front of his arms and legs – vaguely, he can remember tripping and skidding across the ground as he carried Luffy.

Sitting down beside the younger boy, he taps the slightly bloodied skin of his knee and hisses. Hopefully the cuts are too shallow for any risk of infection. Then again; it's not like Ace would know what an infection looked like even if he did have one. He's hardly a medical expert.

"Speak for yourself, idiot," he says gruffly, reaching out to poke lightly at the bandages poking out from under Luffy's shirt. "I'm just fine."

"Then why're you purple?" The kid's head tilts further, and he crosses his legs in front of him.

Ace holds in a laugh. "They're just bruises."

"Bruises?"

Ace yawns, surprisingly tired despite the fact that they've slept through the night and into early morning. "Those purple-green marks that turn up on your skin when you get hurt."

"Ahh." Luffy nods sagely, before his eyes bug out. "Eh?! Ace is hurt?!"

Ace's fingers twitch, and he resists the urge to smack the idiot upside the head. "Only a little bit. Do you…" He hesitates. "Do you remember what happened last night?"

Luffy considers for a second, flopping down to lean his head on Ace's stretched-out leg and look up at him. The added weight on the raw skin makes Ace wince harshly, but he doesn't push Luffy off, glad for the comforting contact. "A bit, I guess. The sirens went off and then there was this big, scary guy by the port!" Luffy spreads his arms and puffs out his cheeks to emphasise just how 'big and scary' the man was. "And then you kicked somebody and pulled me along and-"

He freezes, staring absently at nothing.

"Luffy?" Ace waves his hand in front of his face, concerned. "Oi, Luffy?!"

"Something exploded," Luffy says on a small voice. He looks down at his side, seemingly only now registering the blood that stiffens his shirt and the bandages circled around his torso. "Something blew up, and- Ace…!"

Ace is far from being the best at being comforting, but he doesn't even have to think about it before he's pulled Luffy closer to his side, being careful of the bandages and gauze that paint his skinny chest. "You're good, Luffy, it's okay. We're fine."

"Something exploded," Luffy says hollowly, "Ace,  _hurts_."

Ace clings on for a second longer, feeling the kid shaking, before he pulls back and raises Luffy's tearful face, meeting his eyes. "You were shot. And it's all my damn fault. And I'm sorry, but we're- we're wanted now. We can't stay in this city, not if we want to survive."

"What's happening?" Luffy's voice shakes.

Ace forces the rising panic down, knowing that all he's doing is making his little cousin scared. Pushing Luffy's head gently back down to rest on his leg – this time his thigh, just to minimise the stinging – he sighs and crosses his arms.

"You know the big, scary guy on the docks?" he begins after few seconds. Luffy nods, sniffing. "He was a man called Blackbeard – or, at least, that's what he calls himself. I've been hearing rumours about him for a few months now. He's taking over the East Seas; apparently he's Gifted, like me."

"Gifted?" The fear in Luffy's voice is gone, replaced by curiosity.

"You know that mark on the back of my neck?" Ace taps the spot where he knows it lies, like he has countless times before. "That's a Gift. It's something that people are born with and the reason I always have to hide it is… Well…" He steels himself. "People who have marks like this aren't meant to be born. The Government, the people who rule this island – until now, anyway – want to kill us all. When the mean g-  _Blackbeard_  saw my mark, his sniper shot at us and, well…"

Luffy makes a swirling, vague pattern on the top of his leg. "That sounds like a cool thing," he says casually. Ace snorts but makes no comment. "What does a Gift do, anyway?"

Ace considers the question. To be completely honest, he doesn't really know. He's been told that it's meant to give him some kind of power but if it is, it hasn't gotten around to it yet. So far, this damn thing have been far more a curse than a blessing. "That mark means that I'm free, that I'm powerful – and those are the two things that bad people think only they deserve to be. It's supposed to give me some kind of ability, but I haven't seen any signs of one."

"Ability?!" Luffy exclaims, eyes starry. "That's soooo cool! Do I have one too?"

Ace laughs, feeling lighter than he has all morning. "Thank god, no. But I think you'll do just fine anyway. You're harder to kill than a cockroach."

"I am?" Luffy asks, before puffing up with false bravado and making Ace crack up laughing. "Of course I am! Someday I'll beat you, even without some stupid ability!"

"I thought you thought that Gifts were cool?" Ace asks, laughter in his voice as he raises an eyebrow.

"I never said that  _Ace's_  gift was cool," Luffy says cheekily, before rolling out of the way of Ace's incoming fist.

"Brat!"

"Touchy!" Luffy pouts, and suddenly everything is normal again. He and Ace stare at each other for a long moment, before bursting into helpless peals of laughter, childish voices filling the abandoned old shopfront. Ace hasn't laughed this hard in years.

Slinging his arm over Luffy's shoulder, Ace says, "I think we'll be fine, kid."

"Hm!" Luffy nods in agreement, looking innocently enthusiastic before he realises that Ace called him 'kid' and trying to kick out at him, starting one of thousands of scuffles and spars (he gets pounded into the ground, of course, but still insists that he's won. Ace just laughs).

* * *

_After that first night, the siege continued on the other side of the city and me and Luffy spent all day running around and looting houses, preparing to leave. At some point a Marine ship arrived, but when they caught sight of Blackbeard's logboats they left quicker than you can say 'cowards'. We left the city but I knew that leaving the island altogether wouldn't do much to help us – soon, all of the East Seas would be taken over, and the chances were that we wouldn't have been able to steal a boat, anyway._

_I considered going back to the bandits that had raised me for my first few years. I barely remembered them now, and there was no doubt in my mind that if I have returned they would have handed me over to Blackbeard before I could even try to explain myself. Everybody had seen us when they shot at us that first night. With the encouragement of Blackbeard, the whole city would soon be after us._

_So we left the city but stayed close to it. Outside, in a mountain of ash and dust that had once been some kind of trash heap, we huddled for warmth and watched as the people of Edgetown slowly submitted to Blackbeard and his lackeys – or, as they called themselves, the 'Blackbeard Pirates'. I wasn't exactly the best older brother, and things stayed that way until we finally met Sabo._

* * *

Ace tugs his hood lower over his head, trying to cover his eyes. Every inch of him is screaming at him to turn back, to run back to the trash mountain and to Luffy before he ends up getting stabbed or worse – captured. From his place on the dreary, rain-soaked rooftop, he sets his shoulders determinedly and slips down the drainpipe, as quickly as he dares.

These visits to the city, ever since they began, have put him incredibly on edge. It's been a year since Blackbeard took over and while he no longer resides on the island, a hoard of his followers rule the dusty city with an iron fist. Makeshift wanted posters plastered with Ace's face stare at him from every direction. The people, once only being a little shifty and sometimes less than friendly, are now grey-faced and thin. They look utterly, completely defeated.

Sometimes, Ace hears people talk about running away north and joining the Revolution because 'they're better than any of the damn cowards at the Navy who won't even stand up to Blackbeard'. Most of the time, though, it's just talk. The first and last time a man tried to run away from the island, he ended up with more of him on the outside than on the inside.

Shaking himself out of his musings with a sharp pinch to the wrist, Ace slips across the street, rain slowly beginning to soak through his makeshift disguise. His black bangs hang uselessly into his eyes. All he has to do is get to the port, he reminds himself, and grab anything useful from the docks. They've always been a good place to salvage from, and right now, Luffy's looking so, so small. Even after having lived rough all of their lives, Ace has never seen either him or Luffy look so thin. He won't admit it, but he's starting to get scared.

If he can grab anything of value, they can try to throw together some gadget or another and Luffy can take it to the off-market trade point. Ace hates the fact that Luffy has to be the one to do it on his own but right now, they don't have a choice – Luffy's the one who doesn't have his face stuck up all over the city. Ace does draw the line at the kid coming to the port, though.

Navigating toward the south side of the city is less of an exhilarating adventure and more of a tense, forced procedure. Ace knows the way like the back of his hand but now, he's constantly having to hide himself the second he hears a sound. No risk is worth taking anymore – not when his death leaves Luffy alone out on the trash heap, with no food and no Ace to protect him. Ace is cautious to the n'th degree.

Finally, he makes it to the port side and emerges cautiously onto the street. It's utterly silent. The rain appears to have driven away the fishermen who used to sing as the merrily lined this street. Now, this street – like the rest of the damn East Seas – feels dead. It feels like it was never even alive in the first place.

Creeping across the water-flooded way, Ace swings himself silently down to the long boardwalk and slips into the small cavern below the street. It's a few feet deep and stretches for a while along the front, and Ace can just about manage to fit in here without hitting his head on the ceiling. Crabs shuffle over his sandaled feet and he picks one off absently when it starts to crawl up his leg. He's never been particularly squeamish.

Making his way along the dark, sandy corridor, Ace keeps one eye on the ocean. There's one ship approaching that looks like a merchant ship – it was most likely taken over by the Blackbeard Pirates, and will be unloaded here. Apart from Lougetown, a few days away, Edgetown is the largest port town in the east. This happens often.

Mission forgotten, Ace stares at the approaching vessel with interest, suddenly feeling like it's something important. Ace isn't usually one to go by instinct alone – but he's never been somebody who thinks through their plans too much either, so maybe checking this out won't be a complete waste of time.

About half an hour passes before the boat finally docks. It's clear that it's a captured ship, as the men who steer it into the mouth of the harbour look like they're not exactly used to the ship yet - and when the boat is docked, men and women start to be lead out of the hold in chains, followed by large crates filled with loot. Ace sighs, sweeping his slowly drying bangs out of his eyes. Even more innocent people, crushed under  _him_. These days, it feels like Ace doesn't have much empathy left to spare, but he certainly feels something for these people.

Suddenly, something moves near the crow's nest, and Ace squints hard. He takes a half-step out of his hiding place. Was that…?

"Stowaway! Get 'im!"

A nimble figure takes a flying leap out of the crow's nest, twisting in mid-air before crashing down to the deck. A second later they clamber up onto the railing facing Ace, silhouetted in the sun, and take an unhesitating plunge into the iron-grey waves among a cacophony of shouts. Though the sailors look like they're considering it, nobody jumps after the stowaway, and they don't come back up.

Ace stares hard at the rippling waves, trying to spot any hint of a shadow below the silvery curtain, but the stranger doesn't break the surface. After a few seconds, though, something dark blue and rounded floats limply to the surface ten feet or so away from where Ace stands, and before he knows what he's doing, Ace tears off his shirt and dives into the water.

The cold is like a stab in the chest. For a few seconds Ace is paralysed, unable to breathe, before he takes a strong breath in and tries to kick to the surface. Salty water fills his mouth and throat before he hits the open air, coughing helplessly. After a few seconds of spluttering and struggling, he manages to get air back into his lungs and push towards the navy-blue object, long ropes of seaweed licking at his legs from below the surface.

Ace manages to get to the strange object and treads water for a second, examining it. He knows immediately that it isn't the stowaway – it's too small and light, and is cylindrical in shape. Salty water blurs and stings his eyes, and as a shiver rakes up his spine, Ace turns back toward his small alcove, swimming as hard as he can towards the shore with the sopping wet object clutched in his hand.

Clambering onto the concrete ledge in front of the alcove, Ace rolls over and coughs out a few mouthfuls of seawater, pulling on his abandoned shirt as quickly as he can as shivers rack his frame. Once he's gotten his bearings back, the black-haired boy looks down at the blue item on the ground beside him, and-

"A hat." Ace drops his head into his hands. "I jumped into the freezing cold water in December to save some goddamn hat." Knowing his luck, he'd probably end up with a cold and then he and Luffy would be under for a few days.  _Great_.

"I'd appreciate it if you gave that back."

To Ace's credit, he doesn't fall back into the ocean. He does, however, flinch violently and shoot to his feet, cursing himself for forgoing his pipe on today of all days and setting his legs shoulder-width apart, raising his fists. However, before he can lunge in at the newcomer, he's met with the surprising sight of a small, blond kid who looks around his age, sopping wet and shivering in a dirtied shirt and workers' pants. He has some kind of napkin tied around his neck that Ace has seen some of the richer barterers wear (a cravat? Something like that) but apart from that, everything about him screams 'street kid'. Ace immediately feels a little more at ease – sort of like meeting a being of your own species after a long time of seeing nothing but aliens. This kid is like him.

Ace's voice, however, is still guarded. "Who the hell are you?"

The blonde kid puts his hands out in front of him, trying to show that he doesn't want a fight. "Please, I don't want to fight it's just-" He gestures helplessly to the blue top hat slowly drying by Ace's side. "That's mine."

"You were the one who hid on the boat?"

The kid actually grins almost proudly, as if he can still barely believe that he's here at all. "Yep!" When he speaks, Ace can see that he's missing a tooth. "Can I ask who you are?"

Ace sniffs roughly, the scent of seaweed thick on his skin. "What's it to you?"

"Nothing! Look, if it helps, my name's Sabo." A pause. " _Now_  can I ask for yours?" He extends his hand to shake.

Ace stares the boy hard in the eyes for a second, before sighing almost resignedly and shaking the offered hand. The grin he gets in return is almost blinding, very similarly to Luffy's, and he feels his own lips twitch in response.

"I'm Ace. Can't say it's a pleasure."

* * *

_He was a stowaway on a captured merchant ship from the south, but he was originally from over west. From the moment I heard him say that, I always saw Sabo differently than I'd ever seen pretty much anyone. I grew up hearing horror stories about the west. The West Sea is the only place the government has never been able to control- it's a mess of crime and death and, honestly, pretty damn scary at times._

_Anyway. After I conducted the heroic rescue of his hat, I meant to leave Sabo in the city to take care of himself, but he followed me back to the trash heap. Once he met Luffy, the kid took a shine to him._

* * *

"Aceee!"

Luffy's voice hits Ace a second before the boy himself does, tackling him to the ground in a tight hug. They send up a cloud of dust as Ace struggles to regain his bearings, Luffy sits on his chest, beaming down at him. "Hi, cousin!"

"Get off me, you leech," Ace says gruffly, hiding a smile. Shoving Luffy lightly to the floor, he stands up and stretches, brushing a thick layer of dust off himself.

Luffy beams for a second more before taking in Ace's appearance, tilting his head curiously. "Why're you all wet?"

Tugging Luffy to his feet, Ace starts to walk toward the treeline, sliding off his arm brace and squeezing the last of the water out of it. "I saw something in the water off the port and got curious. It's nothing," he says casually.

"Did you bring it?! Did ya', did ya' did ya'?!" Luffy bounces around him, filled with his usual unending energy.

Ace smacks him lightly over the head. "No, I didn't. Calm down, will you?"

Luffy pouts, but stops bouncing around – or, at least, he doesn't seem quite as energetic. They crunch across the bed of dust, Luffy clinging to Ace's hand, and Ace doesn't have the heart to shove him off. Deep down, Luffy doesn't like Ace leaving to visit the city – and Ace knows it. He doesn't like leaving, either.

A footstep sounds behind them.

Shoving Luffy behind him, Ace spins, whipping Luffy's pipe from the younger boy's hands and bracing it in front of him. As soon as he sees who it is, though, Ace groans in exasperation and lowers his weapon. "You again?!"

Sabo grins sheepishly, scratching the back of his head and straightening that damn top hat. "Uh, yep. I followed you here."

"Hey, cousin, who're you?" Luffy takes a step forward and Ace lets him, but shoots Sabo a warning look. Like hell is he going to let some weird little kid hurt him after all of this.

Sabo seems relatively unperturbed by the familiar term Luffy uses for him – he must have met somebody from the east before. "I'm Sabo!" A flash of that missing tooth again, before his smile fades slightly. "Are you two brothers?"

Ace steps back in front of Luffy – this guy is asking too many questions. "What the hell is your problem, anyway? I told you to leave me alone."

"And I told you that I wouldn't listen!"

"Tch."  _Smartass_. "Just go back to the city and die in some gutter. We don't need some stranger following us around like a lost-"

"Ignore Ace, he's just grumpy 'cause someone managed to follow him and he didn't notice," Luffy chips in brightly. He practically beams up at Sabo, and at that moment Ace knows – Luffy wants to make Sabo their friend. Absolutely nothing can stop the kid when he gets like this; Ace knows from personal experience.

Sabo laughs and asks Ace, "Who's the kid?"

Luffy's face dissolves into a familiar pout. "It's  _Luffy_ , not 'kid'. You don't look that much older than me!"

Sabo tries to step forward but Ace stops him with a harsh glare. "You didn't answer my question. What. Do. You. Want?"

"Calm down!" Sabo raises his hands again but this time, he actually looks a little nervous. His eyes dart with apprehension, and he glances back at the city far behind them, blurred in the evening mist. "You saw me, Ace. You know I'm just some runaway who ended up in the east – I don't-" Sabo struggles for a second. "I don't want to hurt you two, I just don't know where I am. Or what I'm doing. Or anything about this place."

Even though something shifts inside Ace, his face stays passive and cold. "Why the hell  _should_  we help you?"

Sabo looks slightly disgruntled. "I'm not asking for much! But by the looks of it, you know this place well, and three pairs of eyes are better than two, surely?"

"Yeah!" Luffy, seemingly having been drawn in by the conviction in Sabo's voice, nods furiously. "Two eyes are better than three!"

Ignoring Luffy's oblivious bungling of the phrase (and struggling to hold back a snort in this tense situation), Ace scowls -  _It's not a pout! Luffy pouts, I scowl_  – and turns away. Scuffing his shoes in the reddish-black dust, he starts to trudge along the way to his and Luffy's hideout without looking over his shoulder to see if they're following. "Fine, bring the guy along. See if I care."

Luffy cheers as if Ace has just announced that his birthday's here early and grabs onto Sabo's arm, tugging him along as they stumble as one after the oldest boy. Sabo still looks apprehensive, but the shadows that were in his eyes a few seconds before are gone and excitement slowly begins to creep across his face. Breaking away from Luffy and running eagerly after Ace, he sends up clouds of dust with every footstep, the scent of smoke and grime making him feel more alive than he has in a long time.

This is the start of something good.

* * *

A few days after Sabo and Ace's unusual meeting at the docks and the following developments, Sabo hasn't died yet – something Ace is rather surprised to hear, if he's honest – and seems to have taken to trash mountain like a fish to water – the blonde is even half-decent with a pipe. He and Luffy get along like a few thousand houses on fire; their friendship is as fast-moving and destructive as it is warming. And occasionally (figuratively) burning.

Ace himself is slowly, slowly starting to warm up to the idea of Sabo staying with them. Sure, the blonde preteen can be an insufferable smartass, but he doesn't whine and complain nearly as much as Luffy and he takes the fact that Ace is a wanted criminal right in his stride. To be completely honest, he doesn't seem to care.

Ace is shaken out of his thoughts by the sharp call of a hawk overheard, piercing the sky like a knife. It's just before dawn, and he sits silently on the edge of a long tree branch, overlooking the horizon where the sun will soon rise. This tree is around fifty metres from their hideout – if that dump can even be called that – and Ace comes here most mornings, waiting for the sun to rise. The metal of his pipe is cold against his back.

"Ace?" asks a groggy voice from the foot of the tree. Ace starts, glancing down with a scowl on his lips before he realises who it is.

"Sabo? What're you doing up?"

"I could ask you the same thing." Sabo stifles a yawn, starting to climb lazily from branch to branch to reach the spot where Ace has situated himself. Once he's seated a few feet away from him, leaning back against the thick trunk, Sabo puts his hands behind his head. Unlike Ace, he doesn't look to the horizon but to the sky. "I saw that you weren't in the hideout and I worried."

"What'd you do that for?" Ace meant for it to come out gruff and uncaring, but his tone sounds more teasing when he says it out loud.

Sabo shrugs easily, and they slip into comfortable silence as the sky slowly starts to pale. At some point Luffy joins them, plopping himself down against Ace and pressing into his side as he rubs his tired eyes. At that moment, Sabo feels immensely separate from the pair somehow.

When the sun finally breaks the horizon, Luffy stands up to get a better view, previous tiredness gone. When he nearly topples off the high branch and to the floor, however, Ace steps in and steadies him, letting him wrap an arm around him and returning the gesture grudgingly (or, at least, that's how he would describe it). They stare at the sun as it rises for a second, silent and transfixed, before Ace feels the stare pressing into his back.

Sighing in mock exasperation, Ace turns slightly and gestures for Sabo to join them on the precarious ledge. Slinging an arm around his shoulders to mirror how he stands with Luffy, Ace feels Sabo return the gesture and the two beacons of warmth on either side of him press against him hard.

"Hey," Luffy says suddenly, "We're brothers, right?"

Ace nearly chokes on nothing. "What the hell?! Luffy, we've known this guy for less than a week!"

"Yeah, but he's  _Sabo_! He's really nice!"

"He is?" Ace asks at the same time as Sabo says, "I am?!"

"Yeah!" Luffy's stare is still riveted on the horizon, even as he argues with his 'brothers'. "He hits me less than Ace."

"And that's why you want him as your brother?!"

Luffy laughs his annoying, adorable little laugh. "Yep!"

"Oh my god, you're impossible." If Ace's hands were free, he'd smack his own forehead.

"But are we?"

This time it's Sabo's voice that asks, surprisingly small, and Ace and Luffy stare. "Sorry, what?!"

Sabo seems to struggle with his words for a second. "I've been alone for a long time. And brothers…" A wistful look enters his eyes. "Brothers sound like the complete opposite of all of that."

Luffy nods wisely. "Sabo gets it."

Ace drops his head in defeat as he tries to hide a helpless smile, letting the sun warm his hair as it falls across his face. "You two are off your heads, you know that?"

Luffy laughs, eliciting a giddy one from Sabo and Ace's own chuckle; soon they're all laughing loudly, and somebody moves – who, they argue about all morning, but nobody truly knows – and they go pitching over the side, hitting the ground in a pile of groaning and giggling.

Brothers. It doesn't sound all that bad to Ace, at least.


End file.
